Purchase of badges by advancement chair

[DadScout]

As a parent buying stuff for my son I have to show the rank card in order to get the patch. So when he wanted a long sleeve shirt in addition to the short sleeve I picked up the CSP, numerals, ect and then showed the card to get the 1st class patch.

[wagionvigil]

LEts look at a "What If?"
Lets say this is a troop and John goes and gets the badges as needed but no advancement reports are submitted.
Tommy is now getting ready to finish his Eagle. Guess what Tommy is a SCout and that is it. Think of the problems this could cause. It is a lot like the young man that came from another troop several years ago and it was time to have a BOR to advance to life. He had the correct # of Merit Badges BUT he did not have the correct number of required. He was counting Swimming,sports ,Lifesaving and Emerg Prepardness all as Required. He was short two required as you cannot count all 4 as required.
The records from the other troop were a mess that were sent with him. His mother had been the advancement chair in the other troop and more or less did what she wanted. I think that ws the last meeting he attended. Too Bad!

[Chief J]

LEts look at a "What If?"
... It is a lot like the young man that came from another troop several years ago and it was time to have a BOR to advance to life. He had the correct # of Merit Badges BUT he did not have the correct number of required. He was counting Swimming,sports ,Lifesaving and Emerg Prepardness all as Required. He was short two required as you cannot count all 4 as required...

Actually, I believe that a Scout can use all of these as required for LIFE. It is when he makes Eagle that he must choose one of the options as required for Eagle, and the others become electives for the rank of Eagle. I also presume your example is pre-1999 as Sports is no longer an Eagle Required Merit Badge.

Chief J

[wagionvigil]

It was around 95-96 and the decision was made by the Scout Exec. as accepting only two as Required

[Billiken]

Our Scout Shop will not sell any rank advancements without the Advancement report.

Same here.

[riverwalk]

Even with several official Shops here, and another store for just Uniforming stuff....we sometimes hit them when they don't have certain things. Usually, badges of Rank can be found in their storage, to replace in the bins. But a few things might have had a "run" at a given Shop, haha. The points about a Scout's record (through reports) is a good one.

A point about the Mom's pins, though it would be hard to mess up on Scout ranks.....but if you're also getting these for Cub ranks, look closely at them. I find them mixed up with the wrong critters sometimes.

[MisterChris]

It was around 95-96 and the decision was made by the Scout Exec. as accepting only two as Required

Yes, we had a couple scouts in my history here pull this on me. The req for LIFE back then were different than they are today. I was required to 'let it slide' because the rules were not specific. The scout had to make up the ground on approaching Eagle, which gave him 2 ADDITIONAL Req MB to earn.

But, he could use the alternates as non-requireds.

I did not realize this rule had changed.

BUT! I like it better this way. This way the scout cannot be 'caught' having to earn additional requireds. It always gave me a bit of a 'slimy' feeling letting a scout slip by on something that was not the 'intent' of the requirement.

[wagionvigil]

actually it is and was all in the interpretation of the requirements.

[PaulSWolf]

actually it is and was all in the interpretation of the requirements.

And your Scout Exec interpreted the requirement wrong, as I've verified directly with Terry Lawson.

[MisterChris]

actually it is and was all in the interpretation of the requirements.

And your Scout Exec interpreted the requirement wrong, as I've verified directly with Terry Lawson.

I've read over the requirement on Meritbadge.com for Life - there is a footnote that this can still be ANY of the 15 in the 12 categories.

I dislike this, because it sets the scout up for confusion later. If your Adv Chair is not doing his job properly he won't catch this. For a boy approaching 18 he may miss Eagle based on this interpretation, if it is not caught in time.

If a boy does this to me again (it's infrequent) I'll be VERY clear to him and his parents that he'll have to 'make it right' when approaching Eagle, and that he can use his Emergency Prep as a req and Lifesaving for a non-req.

Don't know if you knew, but Troopmaster 2000 software refuses to allow you to assign these this way - it auto-assigns the alternate as a non-req for Eagle. This may not be true if you manually assign - I've never tried.
But I had to adjust his dates when he went up for Eagle so that Life was after the next req MB.

So, regardless, I will continue to discourage this, because it causes many issues later. Not outlaw, mind you, but discourage.

[scoutaholic]

... the requirement ... Life - ... this can still be ANY of the 15 in the 12 categories.
I dislike this, because it sets the scout up for confusion later. If your Adv Chair is not doing his job properly he won't catch this. For a boy approaching 18 he may miss Eagle based on this interpretation, if it is not caught in time.

The rule for years has been that any of the 15 can be counted as required for Star and/or Life. If the boy wants to earn Swimming, Cycling, and Hiking and count them as the 3 requireds for Life, then he can. However, if he does this, he will still be required to earn all the other requireds for Eagle. 2 of the 3 will be counted as alternates.

Don't know if you knew, but Troopmaster 2000 software refuses to allow you to assign these this way - it auto-assigns the alternate as a non-req for Eagle. This may not be true if you manually assign - I've never tried.
But I had to adjust his dates when he went up for Eagle so that Life was after the next req MB.

I have been using Troopmaster for years (2000, Millenium, & 2005 editions). I have never had a problem with the requireds being credited incorrectly. It does allow the alternates all to be counted for Star and Life, but then requires all the correct ones for Eagle.
I believe the "Target Eagle" report (which is fairly useless anyway), shows additional alternates earned with a special symbol that denotes that they were counted for Star/Life, but will not count as 1 of the 12 requireds for Eagle.



I see no reason to discourage a scout from earning the additional required MBs if they desire. They should just be made aware that they will count as alternates when they are doing their Eagle, and they will still have to do all the other Eagle required MBs.

[MisterChris]

Ok, I stand (or sit) corrected. I created a scout 'Joe Test' and messed his records up as bad as I could. Troopmaster ME actually assigned First Aid as a non-req for Star.

IT Handled it on Life by reducing the #req for Life. Then I ended up with 8 req for Eagle, just as you would expect.

Don't know what led me to believe that, perhaps because I'm so used to seeing the pop-up assigning non-reqs to the Palms when the scout hasn't reached Star yet. (I'm sure there aren't any other troops that have seen that. )

- or, maybe 2000 had that issue and it was corrected in ME? Dunno.

[Lynda J]

We do BOR within a week of the time a boy does his SMC. There have been times when we have done them the same night. We have a great committee. We can call the CC on Monday night to tell her we need a BOR the next week. The next Monday we have at least 4 adults there ready.

If we are less than a month from a COH we award the Rank Badge the next week. If closer we wait. WHen we have already awarded the patch we give the card and the parents pin at the COH.

[WVBeaver05]

I haven't tried, but I understand that our Council requires an advancement report to purchase rank, merit badges, etc.

And, like LyndaJ, we have a GREAT committee!! Usually, we have enough CMs present that we can hold a BOR the same night the Scoutmaster Conference is done. We have also had enough show up at an Eagle service project and do one there.

YiS

[Cowboy]

Our council also switched to this policy recently. I have great faith in our Advancement Coordinators (I better, I am married to one of them) but when she is not around I will still admit that she has been known to make mistakes. It would be great if we could all have instant gratification, but to get on a soap box: Instant gratification is what has gotten our country into the financial mess that it is in! Our Scouts wait until the COH to recieve all MB's and even Rank Badges. They take a lot of pride in showing off to family and other scouts how much they have accomplished since the last COH. We have 4 per year, so to wait a maximum of 3 months is not that bad. It also really encourages the boys to finish stuff that they have left hanging so that they receive awards at the COH. They usually will clear stuff up so that they do not "finish" the week after the COH.

[MisterChris]

We have also had enough show up at an Eagle service project and do one there.

YiS

I'm assuming you do NOT mean an Eagle Scout BOR. That requires Committee Chair and Council signatures prior to the BOR and Council or District representation that would not normally be at an Eagle Project.

Scouts coming up for Star/Life may be completing Service hours requirements, or even finishing up their time, or turning in last requirements for a MB needed to attain the rank.

[kwildman]

our council is the same way ...no advancement report no patches or awards. We typically award the cloth patch as soon as possible upon earning the award. However, we award the signed cards, scout pins, parent pins, etc at the COH.

It doesnt seem right to me to make a kid that worked hard to advance in rank wait until the next COH is scheduled.

[MisterChris]

Everyone's entitled to their opinions and there are obviously strong ones on both sides of this fence, but the bottom line is that there is latitude in the scouting program to wait or not wait as the case may be for each troop.

Doesn't look like either side is going to change the other's mind, almost like religion and politics.

[smtroop168]

Here's my opinion and BSA rule:

(Quoted from: Advancement Policies #33088, p. 30)
Each time a Scout advances in rank, he should be recognized on two occasions. The first should occur as soon as possible after a Scout has been approved by a board of review and an Advancement Report has been filed with the council office - preferably at the next unit meeting. This ceremony should be dignified but simple, involving not much more than presenting the Scout with his new badge of rank.

The second occasion is a court of honor, a public ceremony to recognize Scouts for successful achievement and to describe the importance of the program. The main purposes of the court of honor are to furnish formal recognition for achievement and to provide incentive for other Scouts to advance.

Formal courts of honor should be conducted at least four times a year. All Scouts who have advanced since the previous court of honor are honored. Their parents and friends should be invited to attend the ceremony.

[kwildman]

sounds like BSA preferences are pretty clear....give the kids their badges.

Other than "that is the way we have always done it at our unit" what reason is there to make a kid wait? A lot of the previous posts say this is what we do but don't explain why they do it that way. Just curious.